A Walk Down Cold Bath Road, Harrogate (5)

27th April 2013

Down at the foot of Cold Bath Road, where the road joins the Montpellier Quarter, two of Harrogate’s many historic hotels, The Crown and The White Hart, are situated.

There has been a hotel on the site of The White Hart since early Georgian times, at least, and the present neoclassical building (which is early Victorian) dates from 1847 and was much admired by Nikolaus Pevsner.

There is evidence of a Crown Inn dating back to the 17th century. By early Georgian times The Crown Hotel was an important Harrogate hotel and Lord Byron made a famous visit to The Crown in 1806. Following the discovery of its own Sulphur Well, the hotel structure was rebuilt in the 1840s to its present handsome design.

Like most of the large buildings in Harrogate, The White Hart and The Crown were requisitioned during the WWII. After the war they were used by government departments. In recent years, both hotels have been the subject of major restoration programmes and have been returned to their original purpose as hotels.